Are you ready for a challenge? Want to develop and implement creative ideas? Chase a crazy deadline at the same time? Meet cool new people? You don’t have to be a designer, just someone with great ideas and an open mind! The event will be over the course of one weekend Nov 22. 23, 24 Shanghai Sustainability Jam – Save the world in 48 hours! (See below for more details!) You are also more than welcomed to share this exciting event with your friends!

What is Global Sustainability Jam?

Global Sustainability Jam is the world’s biggest non-profit innovation event targeting sustainability. Creative and passionate people will meet to form teams and work to create brand-new real-world designs, projects and initiatives that will create impact on sustainability . The hosts will provide necessary support including guidance, toolbox and communication platform. During the event, all participants will take part in communication across different cities around the globe. On November 24, 3:00 p.m. Shanghai local time, all the participants shall upload their work onto the platform (http://planet.globalsustainabilityjam.org/) and share them with the rest of the world. Learn more about the Global Sustainability Jam.

- Hurry up as places are limited! You must register online http://gsusjam.eventdove.com - This event aims to facilitate creativity and knowledge building, aiming at entrepreneurship and development of new service ideas. The participants for this event are selected based on background and experience to insure a diverse, professional and “Outcome Oriented” group that is focused on the tasks at hand. - Put the dates in your calendar, and bring your funny hats and musical instrument if you have one.

Anyone who has an open mind and wants to practice a hands-on approach to creativity and problem solving, make sure you are available to join ALL 3 days to ensure seamless collaboration and team dynamic. Jam is a great place to learn new skills, challenge yourself and meet great people while having fun. Your designs and projects have the potential to create a real impact on a more sustainable future. See other jammers all over the world

Be an Observer: If you can’t commit to all 3 days, you are also welcome to observe the jam on the Friday opening session and final sharing session on Sunday afternoon.

Who is hosting?

CBi China Bridge, an insight-based innovation firm, wants to promote sustainability design in China, and introduce people to a design-based approach to creativity and problem solving though this exciting event. China Bridge’s role will be to provide a public platform for creative minds in Shanghai’s professional community and connect with the world.

What happens when designers, big-data researchers, students, and technologists are put together in the same room and asked to tackle the world’s greatest challenge?

That’s exactly what happened at “Coding for Climate Change”, a startup contest co-organized by Ask Lab and Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC). This event puts 100,000RMB of seed funding per team up for grabs and invites anyone in the public to generate ideas that uses technology to either raise awareness or to create tools to prevent future climate change impact.

This is a first for China, having entrepreneurs co-create with government sponsored researchers. We’re ecstatic about the possibilities for true social impact and for amazing startups. What’s even more ground-breaking is the fact that these researchers not only have contributed their time, but also a wealth of datasets; making it open to the public and our creative community to play with and use in their apps, websites or any other solution they can think of!

In living up to the principles of open innovation, the first weekend of the event invited anyone in the public including, students, entrepreneurs and other non-programmers to the ideation and empathy sessions, where they distilled the massive obstacle of climate change into a personal and solvable challenge. See the video here: http://challenges.asklab.org

Coding for Climate Change continues on August 31st with a morning pitch session in the “Lighthouse” on Changping Rd 700, open to anyone with passion or perhaps, literally, a world-changing idea. Teams will then be formed, racing against time to flush out their ideas and get customer validation of their products supported by our amazing mentors and good food. All this before the final pitch on Sunday evening, where a panel of judges including officials from the British Embassy, as well as investors focused on social-entrepreneurship will decide the winning startups of the 100,000rmb seed-funding.

We would like to invite you to be part of this bottom-up impact driven event as a participant in the coming weekend (aug 31, sep 1)and get connected with so many passionate people all working to make an impact towards climate change. Please let us know if you would like to reserve a spot (we have 50 spots in total). Our email address is: team@asklab.org

Imagine if heatwaves became the norm: that’s what experts expect for some areas, increasing in both frequency and intensity, and impacting hundreds of millions around the world. Researchers in China have been working hard for years to understand the new challenge of global climate change.”

Now, for the first time ever, this valuable data will be released to the community and these researchers are coming to work with creatives like yourself to join forces and see what innovative solutions for social problems we can come up with.

With China’s obvious size, diversity of ecosystems, and rising global importance, the solutions developed and implemented in this country will contribute to the world’s knowledge base and is an opportunity to lead the way for other developing countries too.

How will we use technology to help people best understand the impacts of climate change and prevent its damage to our life, health, food, water, farming and natural resources?

Join us for this unprecedented open innovation contest to find creative solutions to raise awareness and prevent climate impact - Let’s co-create solutions for climate change!

More information to come about “Coding For Climate Change,” including how to download the datasets, specifications/requirement of the event and other important background information, so please visit our Ask Lab website and sign up for the newsletter to get notified via email.

Notice: This event is by reservation ONLY. And we are expecting no more than 40 audiences. Please complete the reservation form on this page before you come.

Future of Crowdsourcing:

Three trends are defining the future of crowdsourcing: 1. Input: From asking community members to create original contributions to curating contributions that already exist elsewhere. 2. Output: From searching for the best contributions from community members to synthesizing contributions from community members into something new. 3. Focus: From crowdsourcing content, ideas or software from community members to crowdsourcing money, products or services from community members. As a result, the crowdsourcing opportunity space has expanded from “Search + Creation + Content” to various combinations of “Search/ Synthesis + Creation/ Curation + Content/ Things.”

FutureCrafting:

All of us want the same things to be happy, whether we live in San Francisco, Sao Paulo, or Shanghai: live healthy lives, learn new skills and do meaningful work. FutureCrafting explores how technology might help us make more intentional choices, develop more positive habits, live more meaningful lives and craft better futures for ourselves and our communities. FutureCrafting Network connects thinkers and practitioners who are exploring how technology might help us live, learn and work better with people who wish to create a more meaningful relationship with technology. FutureCrafting Media publishes a quarterly magazine and a series of how-to-guides on how technology might enable us become more aware, set meaningful goals, track our progress, and engage with our networks to craft better futures. FutureCrafting Lab helps entrepreneurs create technology-enabled products and services to help people live, learn and work better, through an insights database, innovation workshops, and an impact accelerator. FutureCrafting: Technology to Live, Learn and Work Better.

About Speaker：

Gaurav Mishra helps organizations and changemakers use design, technology and community to craft better futures. Gaurav is currently working on FutureCrafting, which explores how technology might help us make more intentional choices, develop more positive habits, live more meaningful lives and craft better futures for ourselves and our communities.

Previously, Gaurav studied at IIM Bangalore, held senior marketing roles at the Tata Group, taught social media at Georgetown University as the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow, launched Ushahidi-based crowd-sourced election monitoring platform Vote Report India, co-founded social business consulting firm 2020 Social (acquired by Publicis Groupe), and created global insights and innovation offerings for MSLGROUP/ Publicis Groupe.

Gaurav is widely considered to be a thought leader on crowd co-creation and social innovation. Gaurav has written and edited book chapters, reports, op-eds, a weekly newspaper column, a quarterly magazine, and an award-winning blog. Gaurav has spoken at conferences, guest lectured at universities, led workshops for clients, joined award juries, and coached entrepreneurs all over the world. Gaurav has helped create a crowdsourcing software, a social analytics software, and a social curation software, apart from several crowdsourcing-driven social platforms for clients. Gaurav has been a 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow, a 2009 SNCR Fellow, a 2009 TED Fellow, and a 2013-14 THNK participant.

C：I ran the artist residency program at Red Gate Gallery for a little over two years, and now work at a web-based non-profit in New YorkK：I’m a freelance photographer, filmmaker and translator (Mandarin, French & English) currently based in New York.

2. Could you tell us under what circumstances you met and how you got started in the field?

C: My background is in art and graphic design but I moved to China in 2009 to work for Red Gate, and had previously worked at a contemporary Chinese art gallery in New York, and interned at Atlantic Center for the Arts.K: I studied Chinese and art in university, and interned under Crystal at Red Gate Gallery in 2009. I’ve been involved in the Chinese art and music scene ever since.

3. Can you tell us about China residencies the project you are the director/manager for and what prompted the idea for your project and what you do for them?

C: I started hosting meetings with other residency administrators while I was in Beijing to discuss our challenges and how we could provide support, advocacy, resources, and progress for our field. Founding China Residencies is my way of more formally investing in these solutions.K: I came on board more recently, in part because over the years, many friends and artists have asked about opportunities to discover China firsthand. Amassing all our knowledge and resources into one website seemed to be the best way to let the most people know about all the amazing opportunities that exist for artists in China.

4. Please elaborate a bit on your approach to realize your project. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in developing the project?

C + K: Amazingly, everything has gone extremely smoothly. Our biggest challenges are the same challenges we face as young creatives ourselves: a finite supply of time and money, but we accomplished a great deal in our three week research trip. Luckily, as a web-based organization, we we able to launch as a bootstrapped and crowd funded endeavor. We are in the last moments of our crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, please contribute to support China Residencies!http://igg.me/at/chinares

5. What were the circumstances that lead you to coming to Shanghai and What are your future steps?

C: I’ve been amassing a list of artist residency programs across mainland and HK for some time now and Kira and I recently discussed how valuable it would be to include other creative exchange organizations like coworking spaces. I was introduced to Xindanwei through Janis Claxton who is collaborating in Shanghai through a great organization called International Creative Entrepreneurs.K: We are hoping to connect in each of the major (and minor) creative hubs. Our research trip began by visiting residencies, embassies, and co-working spaces in Beijing, then Shanghai, Kunming, Lijiang, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. We hope to come back to China at least once a year and eventually be the most comprehensive directory of residencies, co-working spaces and creative communities in China.

6. Thanks again for providing Xindanwei.com this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

C: To the creatives who are interested in exploring these opportunities I would say take your time and do your research to find the program whose unique strengths (and maybe even differences) best suit you. There are programs for ceramicists, printmakers, novelists, dancers, hackers, streets artists, and just about every creative field.K: We’re passionate about fostering cultural exchange at a human level, so we’ve very excited and pleased to see these new open creative spaces pop up all over the world .

]]>http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/june-featured-people/feed0What we talk about when we talk about typography?http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-typography http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-typography#commentsSat, 08 Jun 2013 06:30:55 +0000Alicehttp://xindanwei.com/?p=6756

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]]>http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-typography/feed31Thank you and we will see you around!http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/thank-you-and-we-will-see-you-around http://xindanwei.com/lang/en/2013/06/thank-you-and-we-will-see-you-around#commentsWed, 05 Jun 2013 02:15:14 +0000Alicehttp://xindanwei.com/?p=6784

Since July 2009, Xindanwei,the first coworking community in China, the brainchild of three co-founders, Liu Yan, Chen Xu and aaajiao, has learned and grown under great support from all our coworkers and friends. We are grateful. To build and grow alongside a community has been a magnificent experience for us and we hope you feel the same way too. And now we decide to move on and get into the next stage of development. Here is to briefly introduce Ask Lab, initiated by our co-founder Liu Yan and it is a social enterprise dedicated to open innovation and facilitating our Xindanwei community to co-create solution for grand challenges, with partners across Asia, Europe, US and Africa.

From June 1, Yongjia Road 50 will be known as“LOHAS space”. By the way, the new managers have been hosting training and education events at XinDanWei for the last year so some of you have met them already. We’re happy to say they are working together with XinDanWei and the new Ask Lab to keep things familiar at Yongjia Road, including the values of co-working, collaboration, and community.

Andrea Liu is one of the new managers of LOHAS space, she said, “XDW friends are always welcome and we’re looking forward to meeting more of you so drop in anytime. We know XDW has done an amazing job to grow this community and it is an honor for us to continue in their footsteps.” You can learn more at www.LOHASspace.com

SPECIAL WELCOME OFFER: For the month of June, LOHAS space is offering discount drink coupons to anybody who signs up to their newsletter. The first edition is coming out mid-June with the details. Please join at this link: http://eepurl.com/AcYBb

CO-WORKING SPACE OFFER: LOHAS space will have a special rate until the end of the year for any desk member who signs up in June. There are limited spaces so if you want to work in a great environment with an active business community, please write to Andrea at contact@lohasspace.com for more information.

OPENING PARTY: Stay tuned for upcoming event announcements at LOHAS space, including a party that will give XDW and LOHAS space friends a chance to get to know each other and meet the new managers.

Any other comments or questions about LOHAS space, please contact Andrea Liu at 021-5213-0789 or email tocontact@lohasspace.com

“Eco-graphs” is a fun art activity in which children create a personal symbol for eco-values using Chinese brush and ink on paper. What exactly are our values with respect to nature? Through a straightforward design methodology this question is explored verbally and visually. Each symbol that emerges is unique, but they all share a visual language that connects them to the earliest forms of human writing. The workshop includes a demonstration and discussion with several professional artists and calligraphers. No experience in art or calligraphy necessary.

Mini Green Challenge – rapid prototyping workshops for a greener me

Cities need a healthy regenerative supply of resources and goods that ensures food, water and energy security. Mini Green Challenge is a call to action for everyone living in the city to raise awareness about conscious living, informed consumption, and the collective impact of individual actions. Our goal is to inspire urban youth and familes to transition from conventional to conscious living, take action, and sustain a healthy, just planet.

Mini Green Challenge designs creative participatory learning environments for game-changing conversations. This project will demonstrate an innovative, community-focused actions toward a sustainable way of living. 5 Mini Challenges will be brought to the public by: Artists, Educators and Green Movement Advocates.

Mini Green Challenge is brought to you by Xindanwei. Meet Xindanwei, a Shanghai based international open innovation program in experiential and radical learning for organization, startup and strategy development. We design and deliver creative participatory learning environments and experiences for game-changing conversations and disruptive solutions, and connect the participants with the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene. We challenge participants to leave their comfort zones, harness individual and collective creativity to evolve and innovate. The outcome is inspiration, transformation, confidence, ownership and next individual and organizational endeavor. This isn’t just about generating ideas. It’s also about making the ideas happen.

The co-working community we serve and work with is a self-nourishing network embedded in China’s creative, tech and social sectors which provides community members with the opportunity to seek out resonated spirits and share in rich discussions about creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and impact to the society.

Do you have a great App idea for the automotive industry but cannot find the channel to gain insights and support from the industry experts? Here is your chance to turn your idea into reality!

Welcome to Audi App Jam! We are looking to empower people who have ideas or talents to build App concepts for the automotive industry by providing them with industrial knowledge, professional mentorship, prizes and most importantly, the direct connection with Audi China’s marketing and product development team.

We are looking for innovative App concepts that provide real value for the Audi customer. We seek App concepts that have not been seen before or are being taken to a new level of development. We want new App concepts that enhance the user experience of Audi, while conveying the style and values of the Audi brand at the same time.

A winning concept should be overwhelming in function, use-ability, emotion and beauty. The App should be intuitive, understandable and user friendly. It is important that the main function of the App is easy to reach and controllable. The App needs to be relevant and meaningful to Audi’s brand.

We are looking for automotive App concepts in the following three categories. Contestants are free to suggest extraordinary Onboard Apps. But we are looking for more input in categories 1 and 2.

1.) The Smartphone App：This is a car-related app which purely runs on a Smartphone only. You can use these Apps whether you are inside or outside of the car.

2.) The Hybrid App：This is a car-related app which runs on a Smartphone, but can communicate with a car as well. You can use it inside or outside of the car. (for example: you listen to a music stream on your Smartphone on the way to the car, once you enter the car the music will run on the car sound system and you can control the app with the car multimedia interface.)

3.) The Onboard App： These kinds of Apps run only inside the car using the car multimedia interface. They cannot be used outside of the car. Apps of this category need to fulfill extremely high safety standards. Therefore, implementation, lead time and testing need far more time than a pure or hybrid Smartphone app.

In terms of function, we are looking for Apps in the following areas, but the list should not limit creativity.

A. Information Apps provide car data, service oriented function, execution functions, personal log book etc. Service oriented functions enable Location Based Services that locate the car, provide local information, directions etc. Execution functions remotely control the car for services such as heating, door locks etc. Car data provide the customers with information about the car service and usage such as fuel and oil gage, tire pressure etc.

Ask Lab presents an online open contest to communicate project challenges to the public. We give people information about the challenges Audi China is facing so that user needs can be identified. Applicants can then provide innovative ideas and talents to address those needs.

We are looking for both IDEAS and TALENTS. People can apply with an IDEA and/or explain how they have the best TALENT to support others ideas. A professional jury will select people with ideas and/or talent to enter into the next “Prototype Building” phase.

Your idea can be presented in any design or choice of format. There are no specifications to adhere to. You can submit your idea/talent in the form of presentations, text documents, images or video files in the upload form.

To help the jury to understand your idea/talent it is essential that you answer the questions in the application form. The deadline of submission is 11:59 p.m. Beijing time, 5 June, 2013. Please submit your idea/talents here. http://goo.gl/KeA9i

We encourage people to make the most of the opportunity to evaluate the ideas by asking for feedback on the project page of Xindanwei. By doing this our team will be able to contribute to the improvement of your ideas.

Prototype Building：

On the evening of June 14, 2013, applicants who have been selected with an idea will be invited to pitch to the crowd and jury. The five best ideas will be selected and teams will be formed around those ideas. They will be joined by a pre-selected student team. Teams will work over the next two days in the prototype building workshop to further develop their concepts.

Teams will be supported by some of China’s best design, technology and business mentors. Resources will be provided to assist the teams to fast-prototype their ideas.

At the end of the process the six teams will need to demonstrate their prototype to the jury with a chance of winning 25,000RMB per team in cash to further develop their prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks. (20% of the prize money will be paid up-front, the rest being paid on the final delivery on July 5, 2013). There is also the potential of being licensed for the product to be made available for Audi.

Development:

For the teams whose prototypes are selected as the winning concepts, Ask Lab will work with Audi China to support you even further with mentorship to help you move to the next level.

Ask Lab is a social enterprise built upon Xindanwei, the first coworking community in China. Ask Lab is an interactive training program in research skills and creative thinking, based on ‘Design Thinking’. Ask Lab is designed to bring organizations and talents together, to unleash creative potential and turn brilliant ideas into innovative, scalable solutions for your and societal challenges.

Audi is a leading brand for premium cars worldwide. In China, Audi has led the premium car market for more than two decades already. With its claim Vorsprung durch Technik and with China as the largest market for the brand, Audi is continuously striving hard to keep its leading position. The “connect” services, which were introduced to China last year, are based on Audi’s award winning MMI technology which was introduced to China in 2005. The concept is completely tailored to the requirements of customers in China, including a touchpad to allow the input of handwritten characters. Audi’s aim is to keep the lead as the benchmark in user interface which can be experienced by our customer every single day they drive in an Audi.

Audi Tongji Joint Lab (ATJL) is a partnership between Audi and Tongji University. As Audi’s research outpost in Shanghai, ATJL is exploring new approaches to overcome traditional industry borders and culture gaps.

Disclaimer can be found in the Chinese text.

Frequently Asked Questions List

Idea Submission：

Is this event for me? Yes. If you are interested in using your creativity and creating Automotive Apps, you are welcome. App Jam gathers people from different backgrounds including technical (developers, coders designers) and business (marketing, finance, law). Participants will work in teams with like-minded, inspired, and skilled members to develop future automotive killer Apps. If you have either “ideas” and/or “talents” in design, information technology, digital media, marketing etc, this event is for you.

Can I participant with my team? Yes and your team should consist of people from different specialties-a designer, a programmer, a marketer, etc.

Can I register with more than one idea? For sure. The more ideas you have, the more you are welcome!

Can I pitch my existing business? Yes, you can. On the condition that you are not working on your ideas with any other automotive companies.

What if my idea doesn’t get selected? Don’t give up. Please try again for our next project.

Do I need to pay for it? No. You can just come with your ideas or talents!

What do I need to prepare? Prepare your idea/talent for submission and your CV

What language should I use? Either Chinese or English is accepted.

What should be included in the idea? You should include the target group, the function your automotive App performs (e.g. information, lifestyle, entertainment), how your App works (function description/user scenario), and what hardware is required to use your App (screen, camera, smart-phone, tablet etc.).

Can I join without any particular idea in mind? Yes. If you have special talents, you can join without any idea.

Who is the organizer of this workshop? What is Audi’s role in this?Audi Tongji Joint Lab (ATJL) and Ask Lab develops and facilitates Audi App Jam in close cooperation with Audi’s headquarter in Germany and Audi China in Beijing. Ask Lab works with startup and creative professionals to solve challenges presented by businesses and organizations. Audi China initiates their challenge as the key theme of this workshop and they are also the sole sponsor of this event.

How do we deal with Intellectual Property? Do I have ownership of my idea? Participants have ownership of their ideas and keep all rights to the concept they submit. In case Audi is interested in the concept, there will be an exclusive licensing agreement between the participant and Audi. The final price should be within the range of a reasonable market price. If Audi and the participant cannot reach a preliminary agreement within a mutually agreed time, Audi will no longer enjoy the exclusive right.

How can I protect against project sponsor or others from stealing my idea? In reality you are not totally protected at the idea stage and the truth is that your cool App idea may have already be developed somewhere else in the world. This does not however mean that your idea isn’t a good one or worth pitching for the App Jam. However, you are welcome to share the key points of your idea that will get people excited but you do not need to reveal the entire idea in the first instance.

What if I use an element in my idea that the project sponsor or someone else already uses? This is ok, as long as the idea is a development and ultimately new for Audi China and not a direct copy of another product.

Prototyping workshop:

What happens in the workshop? We will select the best ideas pitched, forming teams for these ideas and using the Design Thinking process we will provide assistance and resources to help the teams to fast prototype their ideas.

What outcomes are expected from the workshop? We expect teams to build App prototypes designed specifically for Audi China. The App designs are expected to be new, innovative, understandable and user friendly and to inspire Audi China to take the winning Apps to the next level of production.

What is team formation? An idea author you can explain the talents they need and invite speciic people to join their team. Talents can pitch to join an idea/team and can also reject offers. The team discusses how the prize money should be split. In case of winning, Ask Lab will transfer the prize money to the idea author’s bank account. The idea author is responsible for transferring the agreed on parts to the talents.

How does the community voting work? The community voting system is based on collective intelligence: the votes of many determine the best ideas.

What kind of resources and assistance are provided for the prototyping workshop? Industrial/sector insights, channels, professional mentorship, and the potential of prizes, scaling opportunities, incentives even job opportunities and even seed funding for your idea’s.

What happens when I win? The 3 winning teams will be supported with 25,000RMB per team to further develop the idea. 20% of the prize money will be paid upfront, the rest being paid on the final delivery on July 5, 2013. There is also the potential of being licensed for the product to be made available for Audi.

What can we do with the prize money if we win as a team? The prize money is to further develop your prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks. The event organizer will neither be involved nor in the way you allocate the prize the money nor be responsible.

Can I talk to the project sponsor Audi further after the prototyping workshop? For sure, if they are interested in your prototype or specific talents.

Development

What happens in the development phase? You will work with your team and mentors to further develop your prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks.

What outcomes are expected from the development? To make the App demo on a Smartphone including all the major features of the app.

How can I get invited to the development phase? The winning teams from the App Jam are offered the development phase opportunity

What kind of resources and assistance are provided for the development process? Each mentor will provide you with their professional advice and assistance at least 2 times during this process.

Ask Lab the organization:

Who is Ask Lab? What does Ask Lab do? Ask Lab is a social enterprise built upon Xindanwei, the first coworking community in China, with partners across Asia, Europe, US and Africa. Ask Lab is an interactive training program in research skills and creative thinking, based on ‘Design Thinking’. The outcomes from Ask Lab include inspiration, transformation, confidence and ownership to start your next individual and organizational endeavor. This isn’t just about generating ideas. It’s also about making the ideas happen!

How can I be informed about the future projects of Ask Lab? Go to xindanwei.com and sign up, and keep visiting our blogs at asklab.org.

With the Boot Camp project, Tongji School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club, School of Automotive Studies, School of Design and Ask Lab are looking to empower creative students to uncover the creative potential of China. You are welcome to make the automotive of the future more exciting, personal and sociable than ever before with your killer app idea! During Boot Camp we will teach you how to make this real. We make sure you meet the best teachers and mentors from the industry.

In Europe and the US, various Automotive Apps are on the market already, serving all kinds of consumer needs. In China, this market is just emerging. We are calling on students from areas such as design, marketing and software engineering, to develop innovative, market-relevant and interesting App concepts. We are searching for cool App concepts which are meaningful and sustainable.

What kind of apps are we looking for?

We are looking for innovative App concepts that provide real value for the car user. We seek App concepts that have not been seen before or are being taken to a new level of development. We want new App concepts that enhance the user experience.

A winning concept should be overwhelming in function, use-ability, emotion and beauty. The App should be intuitive, understandable and user friendly. It is important that the main function of the App is easy to reach and controllable.

We are looking for automotive App concepts in the following three categories:

1.) The Smartphone App: This is a car-related app which purely runs on a Smartphone only. You can use these Apps whether you are inside or outside of the car.

2.) The Hybrid App: This is a car-related app which runs on a Smartphone, but can communicate with a car as well. You can use it inside or outside of the car. (for example: you listen to a music stream on your Smartphone on the way to the car, once you enter the car the music will run on the car sound system and you can control the app with the car multimedia interface.)

3.) The Onboard App: These kinds of Apps run only inside the car using the car multimedia interface. They cannot be used outside of the car. Apps of this category need to fulfill extremely high safety standards. Therefore, implementation, lead time and testing need far more time than a pure or hybrid Smartphone app.

Contestants are free to suggest extraordinary Onboard Apps. But we are looking for more input in categories 1 and 2.

In terms of function, we are looking for Apps in the following areas, but the list should not limit creativity.

A. Information Apps – provide car data, service oriented function, execution functions, personal log book etc. Service oriented functions enable Location Based Services that locate the car, provide local information, directions etc. Execution functions remotely control the car for services such as heating, door locks etc. Car data provide the costumer with information about the car service and usage such as fuel and oil gage, tire pressure etc.

You will work in groups out of five students with the majors Marketing, Design and Software Engineering. The best experts in town will support and teach each group, how to create incredible ideas and solutions to invent the best automotive App for China.

We use the five steps of the new design thinking method, which has been developed by the Stanford d.school to understand the needs and behavior of a car user, define the problem you are going to solve, create new incredible App ideas, build quick prototypes and test them to get feedback and improve your solution in a very limited time.

The top 5 students of the Boot Camp will be selected to move on to the next level and join the App Jam competition where the winning team of the Boot Camp and the three winning teams of the App Jam have the opportunity to get 25,000 RMB in cash to further develop their prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks (20% of the prize money will be paid upfront, the rest being paid on the final delivery on July 5, 2013). There is also the potential of being paid with extra licensing fee for the final product.

How do you join the Boot Camp We are looking for both IDEAS and TALENTS. You can apply with an IDEA or explain your skills and expertise and why you have the best TALENT for this Boot Camp to support other’s ideas.

Your idea can be presented in any design or choice of format. You can submit your idea/talent in the form of presentations, text documents, images or video files. We suggest a video not longer than 60 seconds.

Your application should answer the following questions and be sent to:

We are looking for skills in design, marketing and software engineering.

Why do you want to participate in Boot Camp?

What is your area of expertise and your major?

What is your specific talent that you will bring to the Boot Camp?

Time of Boot Camp：9am — 7：30pm，25 — 26th May，2013

Venue：Aalto-Tongji Design Factory，100 Zhangwu Road, Yangpu, Shanghai

Who are we?

Tongji University School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club

Apple Club of Tongji School of Software Engineering was founded 2006 and has a long record of of succesfully developing award winning Apps and launch them in Apple’s App Store. Android Club was founded later and is supported by Google.

Tongji University School of Automotive Studies’ Automotive Marketing and Management Institute

The institute is unique for China, and collaborates with most famous car brands and organisations in projects regarding customer insight, market requirements and the further development of China’s auto market.

Tongji School of Design

The school, historically evolved from the most famous Architecture School of whole China. It has vast experience on all fields of product design, service design and interaction design and collaborates with all kinds of famous brands and organisations.

Ask Lab

Ask Lab is founded by Xindanwei cofounder Liu Yan. Ask Lab presents a new framework to innovate and create. Through designing, organizing and delivering exciting co-creation programs and contests, we build access between the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene, and the grand challenges faced by companies, NGO’s and our society